CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed President Trump late Thursday about her trip to Turkey, where she listened to audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
The tape of Khashoggi’s final moments before he was murdered are reportedly gruesome.
Turkish officials claim his killers were waiting when Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They severed his fingers and later beheaded and dismembered him.
Khashoggi was dead within minutes, and within two hours the killers were gone, the recordings suggested.
Saudi Arabia has appeared to acknowledge that its agents had murdered the dissident Saudi journalist in a “premeditated” operation.
A statement issued by the public prosecutor in Riyadh, citing shared Turkish evidence of premeditation, marked the latest reversal in the Saudi version of events and put the focus directly on the question of who ordered Khashoggi’s death.
U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers have said that the killing, in a foreign country, of a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unlikely to have taken place without the knowledge of the kingdom’s most senior leaders.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Saudi authorities, who insisted for weeks that he had left the building after a meeting and that they had no information on his whereabouts, said Saturday that their investigators had determined he was accidentally killed there during a brawl with Saudi agents. The authorities said the agents were there to discuss his desire to return to the kingdom, but offered no indication of who had sent them.
The Saturday statement said that 18 unnamed Saudis had been arrested and that five senior officials had been fired. It also said that a high-level committee to restructure Saudi intelligence agencies — headed by Mohammed — had been formed and that a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation into Khashoggi’s death was underway.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Trump at the White House.
Mohammed and his father, King Salman, have both repeatedly assured Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, that they had no knowledge of a plot to kill Khashoggi.
Trump initially described the Saudi explanation Saturday as credible. But in recent days he has expressed doubt, calling it “the worst coverup ever,” although he has not directly pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership. Instead, Pompeo announced that visas held by the arrested Saudis were being revoked, and the White House on Monday dispatched Haspel to Turkey.
Khashoggi was a journalist and Trump’s history with journalists has been marred by occasional references to violence and regular allusions to “fake news” media being the “enemy of the American people.”
Trump has a reason to defend Saudi Arabia for business reasons. By his own admission, he’s done millions and millions of dollars worth of business there.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner also has a massive amount of business dealings in Saudi Arabia. In fact, the United States has no ambassador accredited in Riyadh. Instead, the relationship is in the hands of Kushner, which in itself could be a massive financial conflict.
Trump registered eight companies during his presidential campaign that were tied to hotel interests in Saudi Arabia.